


Embrace the Day

by frkmgnt1



Category: Battle Creek (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bromance, Episode Tag, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Possible Character Death, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Sympathy for the Devil, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:37:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frkmgnt1/pseuds/frkmgnt1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s panic inside him, now, at the end. There’s also an overwhelming relief at being finished: no more mission, no more penance.<br/>There’s regret tangled into the relief, a Gordian knot inside him. </p>
<p>Milt's thoughts in the moments after he's shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Embrace the Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting on this site, though it's not my first fanfiction.  
> The Battle Creek series finale left me so unfulfilled. I just couldn't leave Milt and Russ laughing in that field. Episode 13 was so powerful, and showed the potential that this show could have had if CBS weren't so short-sighted. I'm going to miss Milt and Russ. I'm also going to give them a conclusion.
> 
> This could be a standalone, though there is already a Chapter 2 from Russ's POV in progress. I suppose if there's interest I'll continue (that's not meant as a bribe. I expect to write it given the time. Readership would be incentive only. I don't withhold writing as punishment for no comments, I promise.) I shouldn't be writing this story as I have a 690 page, and 200 page in-progress stories that've been gathering dust. I suppose I needed something to clear the cobwebs after such a long dry spell.
> 
> I can't say I expect you to 'enjoy' this, but I hope it feels true to Milt.

Embrace the Day

Milt watches the muzzle of the gun lower, a strange cocktail of anticipation and disappointment swirling in his gut. Then Russ shouts out a loud, “No!” and it’s done. The sound of the shot makes him deaf, then the bullet punches him hard in the chest, penetrating. Shredding through everything between his suit jacket and scapula, and there’s too much vital there not to be Bad News. There’s one easy breath, and then no breath at all as he stares at the sky, the cornstalks hard under his back.

_Forward._

His heartbeat is the only sound in his world, ears plugged from the gunshot, head still muzzy from the beating earlier. The edges of his vision fray, the center wavers, and then it all goes white with agony at sudden and insistent pressure on his chest wound.

“Milt.”

He hears his name as if he were underwater, seeks and finds Russ’s bloodied, bruised face only inches from his own. From the frenzy in Russ’s eyes, it’s not the first time he’s said Milt’s name.

_Positive._

He sucks a breath in and it’s blinding, stabbing pain. The oxygen seems to light the chest wound on fire, and he feels more blood ooze out of him. Russ presses down harder still on the wound, and the world’s blurred edges sharpen just enough for Milton to come back to the situation.

There’s panic inside him, now, at the end. There’s also an overwhelming relief at being finished: no more mission, no more penance. There’s regret tangled into the relief, a Gordian knot inside him. It’s always been thus, threads of all his feelings too tight to untangle, so he’d left it; built a wall around it made of expensive wool suits and pearly white smiles.

The realization that he no longer needs to plaster those fake smiles on his face is almost as dizzying as the copious blood loss.  
He can admit that he didn’t want it to end like this, but he can’t deny _he'd needed an end_. Had been chasing one for five years like a junkie chases the dragon. He’s half-bitter, half-elated, and one hundred percent fucking done with this life.

_Embrace the Day._

He knows it. Can feel it. Can feel the blood seeping out of him even as it pours into him. The space in his chest is too crowded for his lungs to fill properly, and the bullet definitely tore apart more than just the top of his lung on its way into where it’s buried inside his back.  
  
Death will come. The idea is both terrifying and thrilling. He deserved worse than the two boys he’d killed. Their deaths were quick; his won’t be.  
  
_Forward._  
  
“Hey,” Russ says, and his voice is quiet, his eyes worried. Milt meets his partner’s eyes, sees the real, bone-deep fear in them, and startles. Because that? That wasn’t part of any plan.  
  
Milt had picked Russ precisely because Russ didn’t like or trust him. Russ had called him on his bullshit from day one, and Milt appreciated that keen perception. Where everyone else was always charmed by the persona he shrugged on like armor each morning, Russ found it tiresome. Possibly as tiresome as Milt himself found it.  

Or not. (Only one person hated Milt more than he himself, and that man had just put a bullet into his lung.)  
  
Still, Russ was supposed to understand why Milt’s death was no real loss.  
  
“You’re going to be okay.” Russ is lying to him; or perhaps it’s himself he’s lying to. Either way, Milt feels that it’s only right to end his relationship with Russ in the fashion it had begun: with smiling lies, and copious bullshit.  
  
_Positive._  
  
“I know,” Milt whispers, and does his best to arrange his sore face into his most winsome smile.  
  
Russ smiles back at him, laughs with him, while Milt’s lungs fill with blood, and his chest cavity fills with air. That force will crush his lungs and heart sooner than later. But not before he succumbs to [hypovolemia](http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=3871) and [hypoxia](http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/hypoxia).  
  
_Embrace the day._  
  
Well, he embraced the shit out of this day, hadn’t he? When death came knocking this morning, Milt grabbed on with both hands. He chased that death down and demanded his dance.  
  
He puts his hand on the back of Russ’s neck, feels when the laughter chokes into small sobs and pats there in an effort to console. Regret washes over him anew. He’d never wanted to hurt anyone, which is why he held himself so far apart from those around him. The person he’d chosen to spend his days with was the least likely to ever befriend him. Any of the others? They might have tried to draw Milt out of his solitude and into their lives.  
  
He couldn’t allow that. Someone might _see_ ; or even get hurt.

Everyone around Milt eventually got hurt.  
  
But there was zero chance that Russ would ever voluntarily enfold him into his life. Russ would have sooner eaten broken glass than share a beer with Milt. Of course, that Russ is upset now is no surprise. Russ is a good man, and not one that would have ever wished harm on Milt. Milt may be fucked in the head, but he’s not delusional. He knows that Russ it too decent a person to ever be happy that justice has caught up to Milt. He didn’t expect anyone to feel the indescribable completion he felt now that the Sword of Damocles had fallen.  
  
Still, seeing Russ’s distress hurts Milt more than the [sucking chest wound](http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sucking+chest+wound), burns and concussion.  
  
Russ pushes down on his chest again, trying to stem the flow of blood from his body; this time, Milt feels the jagged edge of his collar bone shift under the skin. His vision wavers and his stomach rolls, and all those little breaths he’s been sipping turn into a large gasping cough that makes his whole mouth taste of blood and bile.  
  
Russ shouts for someone, but the words are lost under a tsunami of agony. He feels as if he’s been turned inside-out. His heart struggles all the harder to pump the ever-decreasing volume of blood in his body. His fingers go cold, limbs numb, and he cannot focus properly on Russ’s face or words as he struggles for air.  
  
_Forward._  
  
The darkness that has been seeping into the periphery of the world paints a patina over the landscape. His lungs burn more and more with every fruitless breath, and the peace that he thought he made unravels under the crushing fear of the uncertain end.  
  
There are hands all over him now, someone driving first one then another needle into his arm. Then a pain just beneath his right knee like someone fucking shot him again and he thinks he might have yelled. Or maybe that’s just the air sucking in and out of him with every gasp. Something cold is taped over his wound and the pressure in his chest lessens and lessens until color starts to bleed back into the world.  The pain recedes enough for him to drift.

* * *

  
“Milton? Can you hear me?”  
  
The voice is female and unfamiliar. There is a pungent, acrid stink, the sound of flesh slapping flesh. Light intrudes on his darkness, bright and unwelcome and he flinches, jerks his head away as best as possible.  
  
“There you are!” The stranger says to him, and he can hear the smile in her voice. It tugs at that ingratiating part of himself, the part that demands he respond with politeness, patience, concern and attention.  
  
“Welcome back.”  
  
_Positive._  
  
It’s a part of himself he wishes that fucking bullet had killed outright. The part of him that he’s sure Russ wanted to punch several times per day. The solicitous, smiling _jackass_ that made Russ’s eye twitch, and made his own skin crawl.  
  
Still, he responds, does his best to smile and nod as she fixes an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Must be positive, after all. Remember, Milton: _Big smile, Big Laugh. You’re happy to be here._  
  
“That’s it, Milt.”  
  
That’s Russ again, but his voice is thick, jagged. Wavering. He looks around, tries to get eyes on his partner, and realizes that the venue has changed. No more sky, no more field. No more cornstalks jammed uncomfortably into his back. The relative quiet of the field has been exchanged for the chaos of medical apparatus, and the movement of a vehicle beneath him.  
  
Fucking ambulance. He’d have bet against them reaching him before he bled out. He’s not looking forward to prolonging this nightmare, just wishes everyone would let him rest already.  
  
Can’t they see how tired he is? How exhausting every single day is? Can’t Russ see it now that Milt has stripped off all the masks, armor and bullshit and just showed him the hollow, empty thing beneath it?  
  
He feels a hand wrap around his wrist, fingers twisting his hand around until the palm of the hand brushes his own. The fingers tighten on his own, demand his presence with enough ferocity that Milt surfaces from the daze he’s only just become aware he’d slipped into.  
  
“You’re going to be alright, Milt.”  
  
What?  No, he won’t. That was a lie. Russ never believed him, not even when he told the unvarnished truth. This bullshit lie that he’d be okay, Russ believes?  
  
Un-fucking-believable!  Russ is such an infuriating, contrary, tenacious pain-in-the-ass.  Milt really should have known better.  If there's a way for Russ to contradict and undermine him, he will.  If there isn't a way, Russ will create a way just to prove him wrong.

His annoyance at Russ ebbs into exhausted apathy.  His broken body just doesn't have the resources to sustain the indignation.  He feels the undertow pulling and dragging at him. His body is a distant, painful thing; his mind skitters from it like a rat escaping a sinking vessel.

Our souls, not our mistakes, are what define us, Milt had once said. The words were aimed at a murderer at the time, but they’d been his lifeline for the past five years. Hollow though they were, he lived each day to make them truth. He hopes that Russ remembers those words when he’s called to testify. Milt would die another death if it could fix his mistakes, return solace to a man whose life he destroyed.  
  
But he has only the one death, and he feels it approaching with the slowing of his heart, and the ice of his limbs. It’s not scary anymore, or sad. There’s only relief, and maybe a little excitement. So he moves on forward, positive and—  
  
Embraces the day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for Reading. Comments are appreciated.
> 
> update: I've added some links regarding medical descriptions into the body of the story. They are not necessary, but I like to be thorough. They are definitions only. I will warn if I link medical photographs. Still, click with caution if medical descriptions are upsetting for you.
> 
> Removed the Major Character Death Warning since the one shot is growing into a longer story.


End file.
